The thunderstorm
by Marjorie Nescio
Summary: While drinking with some fellow students Rosencrantz and Guildenstern recall a visit to Elsinore when they were seven years old.
1. Student's talk

This story focuses on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, students in modern day Denmark. They recall a stay at Elsinore when they were little boys.

A photo from the mid-nineties of Francesca Annis (an English actress who happened to play Queen Gertrude on stage, but that aside) inspired me to write _The thunderstorm_. At for instance jsrpages dot co dot uk the curious among you will find many photos of her.

I first published _The thunderstorm_ as a single chapter story in August 2009. I rewrote it and turned it into a multi-chapter story.

Chapter 1 – Student's talk

Seven friends gathered at their student's club. Outside the wind howled but inside there was a burning fire place with comfortable chairs and no reason _not_ to drink and be merry.

Thomasson, Jensen, Vingstadt and Kjærgeld had first met when they'd joined their fraternity three years previous. Ulrich was an exchange student who had lived in Denmark for nearly half a year. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had become friends at kindergarten and behind their backs they were known as _hand and glove_.

´Fuck chaps, blast this bloody weather.´

´Really Thomasson!´ Guildenstern objected.

´Guil girl sorry,´ Thomasson replied, ´but I am not a poet am I? And now there's bloody lightning too. Ain't it sad that we sit here, seven chaps and four bottles of good old John? When you swig you need prose, my uncle used to say. Story time! You start Ulrich!´

Ulrich didn't care for Thomasson's commanding tone.

´What am I, a storyteller? I study _economy_ mate!´

´Guil is our linguist,´ Jensen quickly said. He was fascinated by royalty and he had subscriptions to three gossip magazines to satisfy his curiosity. He had been delighted when he'd found out that Guildenstern was the son of a baron and he had been thrilled to learn that Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were in prince Hamlet's circle.

´Tell us about your ancestral estate,´ Jensen suggested, ´Tell us about prince H.´

Guildenstern's only reply was a shrug and Jensen dared not continue. He was glad when Ulrich picked up the subject and asked Guil whether he knew the prince well.

This time Guildenstern nodded.

´I visited Elsinore as a tourist,´ Thomasson remarked, ´Have you ever been there?´

Rosencrantz proved more talkative than his friend: ´Guildenstern and I stayed there, many years ago mind you, we were about seven years old.´

´No matter,´ Ulrich said. He pointed his cigar towards Rosencrantz. ´You've got a powerful patron mate. Guil doesn't need one I suppose but for you it's great.'

Not noticing the fact that Rosencrantz felt insulted by his remark, he continued: 'Could you by any chance introduce prince H to me?

´There's no need for that Aussie,´ Kjærgeld said, grinning.

´He said he didn't mind that I'd bumped into him and that the wine stain could be removed,´ Ulrich replied. His fellow students laughed.

´And then he walked away as if you were a cockroach,´ Kjærgeld reminded Ulrich.

´No matter,´ Ulrich waved his hand. ´What does he find attractive? I've got a blonde sister and a dark haired cousin. Could ask them to come over.´

´Oh God,´ Guildenstern objected. ´The prince´s grandfather married a royal cousin, his father married a royal cousin…´

The Danes rose and toasted: ´The Queen!´

´Hamlet will marry a cousin as well, however far related,´ Kjærgeld explained as he dropped himself in his chair.

´That ain't healthy. But what do you mean _the Queen_?´

´You've never seen her?´

Kjærgeld walked to a table near the window and picked up a photo to show it to Ulrich.

The latter rose: ´The Queen!´

While Thomasson poured his friends drinks, Ulrich stared at the Queen's portrait. ´This is an old picture right mates?´

´Nope, half a year old.´

´Oh man. Was she around when you stayed there, Rosencrantz?´

Rosencrantz affirmed this. A slight blush graced his cheeks and neck.

A butler entered with warm snacks.

´Thank you Henson,´ Guildenstern said. The butler nodded at Guildenstern, ignored the other students and left. Vingstadt grabbed a snack, burned his fingers and shrieked.

´You sit there silently Vingstadt, and when it comes to eating, you're the cock of the walk. I bet you ate ma-ca-ro-nie all week sucker?´ Kjærgeld said bitingly.

Vingstadt shrugged and eyed his snack as if he were in love with it.

´Ever been in the army Vingstadt?´ Kjærgeld wanted to know.

´Flat-footed,´ Vingstadt admitted.

´Among others...´ Kjærgeld whispered.

´You weren't in the army either were you Rose?´ Thomasson asked.

´I was.´

´But when we are complaining about officers you always keep shut.´

´He was in my father's regiment,´ Guildenstern informed them.

´Didn't know that,´ Thomasson said. ´I thought your old man was a Baron. But he's a war-horse too? What's his rang?'

´Colonel.´

´So he's a bigwig.´ Addressing Vingstadt Thomasson added: ´_Do_ leave something darling?´

Guildenstern didn't feel like talking about his father.

´What about you Thomasson? You weren't in the army. Were you an au-pair or something?´

´Go Guil!´ Kjærgeld praised. ´Yeah Toson, what were you doing while we were slaving away in the barracks?´

With a heavenly smile on his face Thomasson replied:

´I've done what every young man should be doing after high school…´

Ulrich moved his pelvis.

´I took French classes…´

Ulrich started moaning. Thomasson grinned and continued.

´Creep. I took classes near the beautiful city of Toulouse… from very friendly… monks.´

They all laughed except for Vingstadt.

´Aren't there any sausages?´ he wanted to know.

´Exactly!´ Ulrich agreed. He took a bite of his snack. ´There's only one French line you need to know: "Voelee voe koesjhé avek mwa".´

Picking up the Queen's portrait again, Ulrich added: ´Mama! What a mind blowing tit-´

Guildenstern, always the gallant knight, jumped to his feet. His reputation as a fierce boxer had reached Ulrich who did some quick thinking.

´-bit this is.´

Ulrich reached for another snack. ´We ain't got these in Australia Guil,´ he said while winking to Thomasson.


	2. Childhood recollections

Chapter 2 – Childhood recollections

Guildenstern couldn't accuse his friend of having offended the Queen and he sat down.

Jensen remembered something. ´Didn't you blush, Rose, when Ulrich asked if the Queen was around when you stayed at the Castle?´

Rosencrantz had expected and hoped that someone would ask for the story. He took a sip of his scotch and ignored Guildenstern's worried glances.

With a sparkle in his eye Jensen introduced: ´Once upon a time…´

Rosencrantz finished the line.

´There lived a young prince.´

´Rosencrantz!´ Guildenstern hissed.

For the first time in a long while Rosencrantz ignored his friend.

´He invited his two friends to join him during the warm summer holidays. The three of them played near the Castle where the little prince lived.´

Thomasson poured everyone another drink.

´We weren't allowed to go everywhere; we could only go to the secluded garden.´

Guildenstern, who had a habit of correcting errors, remarked: ´We also took a swim.´

´We did! In the lake with the water lilies! Now, I'd been to Guil's castle -´

´I wouldn't call it a castle,´ the future owner of a castle objected.

´It's _called_ a castle and therefore it _is_ a castle. But Elsinore, that's a _Castle_! It's huge! One day, we'd had breakfast with the King and afterwards he took us for a tour. The King told us how Elsinore had been defended over the centuries, he's a soldier right? He showed us the ancient halls and the dungeons. And then he took us outside so we could walk on the outer walls. We spent _hours_ there, and at the end we hadn't seen half of it.´

´Well,´ Guildenstern objected, ´we went fishing for a while and we had lemonade with some guards.´

´Still,´ Rosencrantz replied, ´it's huge! We saw places even Hamlet hadn't seen before.´

Guildenstern nodded.

´That evening,´ Rosencrantz told his friends, ´the King took us to his kennel, 'cause Guil here was promised a puppy.´

After all these years, Rosencrantz was still envious.

´Hamlet and I made up names for the dog, but Guil didn't like any of them. He finally named the puppy Tyra, at the Queen's suggestion.´

´Her Majesty didn't know that the King planned to take us to the kennel until _after_ it happened. She didn't like it, because _you_ hadn't been promised a dog,´ Guildenstern added to the little history.

´Wasn't prince Claudius around?´ Jensen asked.

´He was abroad. Remember Guildenstern, that lady in waiting we had dinner with one evening, when the King and Queen were at an official dinner?´

Guildenstern nodded.

´O Lord, that woman was _fat_! Unbelievable.´

´Fat ladies can be found everywhere Rose. Tell me about the protocol. How did you address the King and Queen?´ Jensen inquired.

Thomasson poured everyone another drink.

´I once called him 'daddy of Hamlet' and he didn't mind. 'King Hamlet' was all right with him as well. I believe we always called the Queen 'Queen'.´

´What about the servants and the cutlery and all?´

´I copied Hamlet. Guil was used to three forks and knifes and servants and all that stuff. It wasn't very formal I suppose: the servants weren't 'Your Royal Highnessing' Hamlet all the time.´

It was still raining outside, and the thunderstorm had neared the town. There were hardly any pauses between lightning and thunder. Ulrich closed the curtains.

´One night,´ Rosencrantz continued, ´we were in bed, we slept in Hamlet's room, and we were telling each other scary stories. And then it started to rain heavily. The wind blew like crazy and the first flash of lighting lit the room for seconds. Didn't it Guil?

Guildenstern nodded: ´It was even worse than this storm.´

´We'd both brought our cuddly animals...´

´I still have one,´ Vingstadt revealed.

´Why am I not surprised? Well anyway, we'd brought them with us. Mine was an ape. And I believe you had a zebra Guildenstern?´

´It was a tiger.´

´We were in bed and we told each other that our animals were so very frightened. At half past eleven, Hamlet jumped out of bed and said that Henrik, that was his ice bear, was scared and that he would take him to his mother so she could comfort him. We followed Hamlet of course, bringing ape and tiger with us. When we got in the hallway, a guard appeared out of nowhere. We screamed, well, Hamlet didn't, and he told the guard about Henrik, Søren -´

Rosencrantz was surprised to have remembered his ape's name.

´Søren! That was his name!´

´What idiot calls his ape Søren? Really! What was your tiger's name Guildenstern?´ Thomasson asked.

Guildenstern and Rosencrantz cried out: ´Uncle Herbert!´

Their friends smirked. Rosencrantz didn't mind. He relished his memories.

´Hamlet told the guard that Henrik, Søren and Uncle Herbert -´

Jensen started giggling.

´- were afraid of the storm and that he'd bring them to the Queen (that's how he said it mind you) so they'd feel better. And he walked towards a door, but the guard told him he couldn't use the winding stairs, because of repairs being done. He asked Hamlet if he needed to accompany us. I figured Hamlet didn't want us to think that he needed a guide in his own house and he declined the guard's offer. After a few minutes we were hopelessly lost.´

Thomasson poured everyone another drink.

Rosencrantz grinned. ´The guards we passed were sportive and didn't interfere. I guess that Hamlet would have found his way at day time, but it's such a huge Castle and in the dark everything looks different. When Hamlet at last opened a door and proudly said that we had arrived, we turned out to face the linen-room. For some reason there was fitting doll and when the lightning lit the room, it looked like a ghost. I nearly wetted myself.´

´It _was_ scary,´ Guildenstern admitted. ´And the wooden floor was cracking like crazy -´

Noticing the smirks on Kjærgeld and Thomasson's faces, Rosencrantz said: ´We were seven years young chaps, remember! Now we ran like the devil pursued us, but it turned out Søren had been left in the linen-room so we had to go all the way back.´

Jensen roared with laughter. Kjærgeld hummed the theme from 'Tour of duty'. Rosencrantz hushed them.

´Where was I… OK. Søren -´

Jensen, who'd just calmed down, started giggling again.

´- couldn't be located until there was another flash of lightning. The poor ape had rolled under a table.´

´Scared as hell!´ Ulrich laughed.

´Hamlet volunteered to get him. On his bare knees he grabbed my dear ape! After that heroic mission he was man enough to walk to the nearest guard and tell him that he got lost. For he never took the long way to the Queen's room, he said.´

´And he told him about bear, ape and tiger,´ Guildenstern added. ´The guard said he would bring us to the Queen's room and he gave Hamlet his electric torch to light the way.´

Rosencrantz took over.

´We more or less had to run to keep up with him and then our Guil lost Uncle Herbert, got back to pick him up, slipped and hurt his head against a side-table.´

The friends laughed.

´He was _bleeding, bleeding_! You wouldn't believe it!´

´It wasn't that bad,´ Guildenstern objected.

´_Bleeding_! The guard gave young Guildenstern a handkerchief to press against the wound and we continued, the guard walking hand in paw with Guil's tiger.´

Jensen made funny noises.

´Could someone give him his medication? Anyway, we finally arrived at the Queen's suite. There was a guard there as well and our guard saluted the man, but he'd forgotten that he was holding Uncle Herbert.´

Jensen and Ulrich laughed their heads off.

´Hamlet stepped inside the suite and we followed him. He'd returned the electric torch to the guard, which proved a poor decision, for it was very dark, and since we didn't realise we could switch on the light, not that Guil and myself would have known where to find the switch, we could only move when there was lightning. On our left side there was a wall, on the right a huge room. I remember a long table, a huge fireplace. On the wall there must have been dozens of pictures. At the end of the wall, near the windows, there was a narrow passage way, curtained off by a faded cloth -´

´A faded cloth! An original fourteenth century hanging, but fine, call it a faded cloth!´ Guildenstern spat.

´Right! As if you knew that back then _my lord_.´

´I most certainly did sir!´

´Come come, no fighting! I bet there was something beautiful behind the hanging,´ Ulrich intervened.


	3. Fond memories

Chapter 3 – Fond memories

Ulrich had guessed correctly: both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern started smirking.

´See?´ Ulrich said. ´Now tell daddy what you saw.´

´Passage, bedroom. A gi-gan-tic bed.´

The students leaned forwards.

´Really it was... three by three metres Guil?´

Guildenstern nodded.

´Were they making love? The King and Queen?´ Ulrich anxiously asked.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern looked at each other and shrugged.

´The King had left for a military field trip.´

Ulrich sighed and so did the rest of the audience.

´Hamlet walked around the bed and whispered: Mother? I figured she'd never hear it, but she woke up instantly and said: What is it little one?´

Jensen covered his mouth with his hand, oddly moved at this insight in a royal relationship. Thomasson poured everyone another drink.

´Henrik is frightened by the thunderstorm,´ Rosencrantz imitated a boy's voice. In his own voice he continued: 'Hamlet's words were followed by a very heavy thunderbolt. The Queen said that she could imagine Henrik was afraid and she asked where _we_ were. Hamlet pointed at us and introduced Søren and Uncle Herbert.'

Rosencrantz took a sip of his scotch.

´By then the Queen had switched on a lamp and she saw Guildenstern's wounded head. She jumped out of bed in tiny panties and a chemise.´

Rosencrantz smiled from ear to ear and his hands outlined a very female figure.

The students sat back in their chairs, grinning stupidly.

´She knelt before Guildenstern, took his little hand in hers, discovered he was cold and told Hamlet and myself to get into the bed. She took Guildenstern to her bathroom.´

Everyone eyed Guildenstern, who stared into the past.

´Guil!´

As if under hypnosis Guildenstern said: ´She cleaned my forehead with warm water and said that she would put some iodine on it. It hurt and perhaps I cried a little because she gave me a kiss. After she'd put a plaster on it, she told me to get in bed.´

´Anytime m'lady,´ Ulrich whispered.

Guildenstern took a sip. His friends copied his action.

´I clambered into the bed but my good friend here -,´

Rosencrantz sniggered.

´ - refused to move. The Queen, who had dressed herself in a pair of pyjamas,´

He was interrupted by sounds of disappointment.

´Tell me!´ Rosencrantz took over the story. ´She told me to move over and then Guildenstern lay down next to me and she lay next to _him_!´

Guildenstern enjoyed the jealous glances his friends favoured him with.

´I have to add,´ he said, ´that after lying there for a few glorious minutes -´

´- sobbing as if your head still hurt!´ Rosencrantz reproached.

´Now did I?´ Guildenstern grinned. ´Anyway, you, sir, started pinching me!´

The students laughed.

´And you defended yourself.´

Rosencrantz addressed the others: ´The Queen woke up and asked us what was wrong. I told her that Søren and Uncle Herbert were still afraid. Hamlet slept like a log, so Henrik was out of luck.´

´And Her Majesty took our animals and placed them on her upper body, their heads on her shoulders, so she could comfort them and they could breathe. As if we cared!´

´I'm jealous of two stuffed animals,´ Ulrich said, shaking his head.

´Being a caring boy, I placed my arm around Guil so I could hold Søren. I suppose I nearly crushed you Guil...´

´I didn't mind,´ Guildenstern confessed.

´No, I suppose you didn't. Well, again the Queen asked what was wrong, and I said that Søren had said that he found it scary, lying on the edge of the bed, and could I please lay next to him? She was OK with that and I clambered over Guil and over her...´

´Oh man!´ Ulrich said.

´... and I lay next to her. I felt like a king.´

The students nodded.

´As did I,´ Guildenstern added. ´However, the next morning I woke up in Rosencrantz's arms, Søren and Uncle Herbert in between us. The Queen had gone to wo-´

´Don't ruin it with 'noying details!´ Thomasson slurred.

Henson entered to inform them that the club was closing.

´Enson,´ Thomasson answered, ´Them words come at pr'cisely the right time.´

´I'm glad to hear that sir. I took the liberty to order cabs for the gentlemen. They will arrive shortly.´

´Thank you Henson,´ Guildenstern replied, adding: ´Don't touch that picture Ulrich!´

Once the students were outside, the drizzle and the strong wind had a sobering effect on Guildenstern.

´We'll keep this among ourselves, won't we?´

´Sure, sure,´ his friends said.

Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Thomasson, who lived in the same house, took the first cab. Jensen, Vingstadt, Ulrich and Kjærgeld watched the car drive away.

´Guess Guil thinks he'll get his head chopped off for telling eh?´

´In another multiverse he will!´ Vingstadt predicted.


End file.
